Holiday spectacular comes to Blue Room Theatre

CHICO — The Blue Room Theatre is billing its upcoming show, "Loki Miller and Friends Blue Room Christmas Spectacular," and declares it an event of Christmas magic complete with music, mirth and merriment for all ages. A one-night-only production, Dec. 15, at 7:30 p.m., the show will feature original new Christmas songs by Loki Miller, holiday skits and stories and a community chorus singing classic carols.

"We wanted to do something special for Christmas," explained co-producer Olivia Gomez. "Loki came up with the concept of the show and it's like a Christmas special on TV."

Other co-producers/directors are Loki Miller and Allison Parker, with Gomez also music director. Stage manager is Madison Heffley.

Miller is a young man of many talents. Leader of his 6-member band, he is also a theater director and writes original music. Titles of some of his songs: "Spooky Little Christmas," "No Sleep 'Til Christmas" and "One Last Christmas." Band member and guitarist, Aamir Malik, wrote, "Christmas is a Work of Art." Other members are Matt Weiner (violin), Gavin Fitzgerald (base guitar), Michael Bone (drums), Josh Hegg (keyboard) and Miller on guitar and vocals.

"We want to get a lot of people involved in as many age groups as we can," Gomez said. "Instead of a regular show, it will be more like a variety show."

The 11-member community chorus, ages 6-20, will sing familiar Christmas songs, and invite the audience to join in a holiday medley.

"We will also read, 'The Night Before Christmas' story," Gomez said. "The children will draw pictures which will be projected on a screen as the story is read."

Gomez and Parker conceived another Christmas special show called "Broadway in Love," performing on Dec. 16 at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. at the Blue Room Theatre.

"It will be performed by our Blue Room Young Company, Parker said, "which is a branch of the Blue Room Theatre main stage. "We want to establish a core group of kids who are really involved and dedicated to theater. We do that by doing continuous shows. We have about 35 kids in this show, ages 5 through 18.

"It's fun to work with all ages," she said. "The older kids are super accommodating to the younger ones, who then have a higher standard set for them."

Gomez explained both shows are family-friendly as they want to reach out to everyone in the community.

"We have two young girls as our Masters of Ceremonies," Parker said, "Lydnee Kenny and Mia Clarke. Our chorus will sing songs from a wide variety of shows. We'll have songs from 'Oklahoma,' 'Gypsy,' 'Phantom of the Opera,' 'Rent' and 'A Chorus Line.'"

Advance tickets for the "Loki Miller Christmas Spectacular" are $20, or $25 at the door. Tickets for "Broadway in Love" are one price of $7.